


38:  Mile High

by light_source



Series: High Heat [38]
Category: Baseball RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-26
Updated: 2012-02-26
Packaged: 2017-10-31 19:07:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/347417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/light_source/pseuds/light_source
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>- While you’ve been out there letting yourself be adored, says Tim, pressing in close enough for Zito to be able to feel the length of his body and the heat of his breath, - I’ve learned a couple things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	38:  Mile High

They try not to change anything.

Tim leaves nothing - not even his toothbrush - up at Barry’s place on the hill. He annoys Zito by using _his_ toothbrush. When Tim points out that it’s no germier than a kiss, Zito rolls his eyes as if to say _yeah, but it's not exactly romantic._

If Zito wakes up at Tim’s wanting coffee, he knows he’ll have to pick it up himself at Up & Atom on his way to the yard. But that’s OK; they know he likes his latte half-caf with no foam and a shot of chocolate, and the blue-haired barista usually comps him cause he’s good for business.

Without ever actually talking about it, they always arrive at the yard in separate cars and at different times. Tim’s usually almost-late, pulling into the players’ parking lot at 8:57, the dark windows of his Mercedes blank. He favors the too-narrow-for-SUVs spot on the far side of Rich Aurilia’s pencil-yellow Hummer. He gets out in its shadow, pulls his hood up over his cap and slips past the crowds of autograph-seekers unnoticed.

It’s not hard.  Most people don’t know who he is.

Zito, in contrast, likes to get there at least half an hour early. On any given day, by the time Tim arrives, Barry’s already three or four deep in a klatsch of fans, signing and small-talking with the minor-league moms and the grandpas.

Today Zito’d had to be pried loose from the love-fest by two uniformed security guards who’d swaggered out, barking into their bullhorns. Zito’d brought it on himself: he’d reached over the barrier to scoop up a kindergartner who’d thrown his arms out, asking, and a big collective _AWWW’d_ gone up from the crowd as Zito balanced the kid on his hipbone and listened to him recite Bonds’s lifetime batting stats. Somebody’d snatched off Barry’s cap, and then one old lady was pulling on his shirt, and it was starting to look like a Justin Bieber sighting.

As the two burly guards had escorted him away, though, Zito’d turned around and kissed his bunched fingers at the crowd, prompting another round of squeals and camera flashes and shouts of “over here, Barry!”

The half of the team that was watching this through the blinds of the training-room windows was ready to kill Zito. The moment the door’d sucked shut behind Zito, Taschner and Lowry jumped him and got him in a headlock, tickling him and screaming _showboating motherfucker!_

Murph, the clubhouse manager who’s worked for the Giants since 1958 and is thus surprised by nothing, let it roll for a few minutes. Then, as he was walking a stack of towels over to the showers, he’d casually pegged a torn-open ice pack into the center of the fracas. Taschner and Lowry’d scattered, spluttering. Zito, smiling a little, his hair not even messed up, had picked up his gym bag and walked calmly over to his locker.

It’s like this everywhere they go - Chandler, Mesa, Peoria - everybody wants a piece of Zito. Maybe it’s something about his seven years playing for Oakland; maybe it’s the Cy Young; maybe it’s the legendary contract. Everyone on the east side of Phoenix seems to recognize him. But it’s also about the way Barry carries himself, the way he tips his head and ducks his chin like George Clooney, leaning in to make eye contact with every fan, his voice soft and low.

//

The Dodgers walloped the Giants 4-1 this afternoon, so a bunch of them are at Westgate, drowning their sorrows at Gordon Biersch cause Nate’s homesick for San Francisco and wanted garlic fries. They’re at the bar, and Tim’s thinking they must’ve accidentally gotten sucked into some wind-tunnel of fan insanity, because a steady stream of acolytes keeps turning up, dragging Barry off his stool and over to their tables for autographs and photos. Tim and Brian and Nate are left sitting there feeling like a bunch of geezers waiting for the Greyhound bus.

Tim’s watching the beer taps sweat while he and Nate and Brian knock back their third round of last year’s Märzen, a reddish lager that has an unsettling resemblance to the gas his dad used to make him suck-siphon into the lawnmower. Nate, who’d had a triple for today’s only RBI, is talking on the phone.  He's turned his stool so he’s facing away from Brian and Tim, one finger in his ear so he can hear Kate’s voice on the other end.

\- It’s like watching a snake eat a rabbit, barks Brian over the clamor of the big room as he and Tim watch Zito glad-hand - it’s gross but you totally can’t keep your eyes off it.

\- Yeah, says Tim, sneaking the last garlic fry off Nate’s plate, - Zeets is a fuckin’ force of nature.

Suddenly Tim’s aware that Wilson’s scrutinizing him, wide-eyed and blinkless, as though he’s bearing down on a batter.

-You’d think, says Wilson, - that being here in Dodgerville, we’d be safe from this fan bullshit. Where’s all the LA fans? They should be here trying to kill us. _But nooo_ , he says, stretching the word out. - cause we got the Zito effect. In fact, he continues, - I can’t think of anyone that’s safe from the Zito charm offensive. _You_ sure as hell aren’t, Timmy.

\- Meaning? says Tim a little too quickly. The three pints of Märzen have left him feeling loose and a little belligerent, and since he’s the one who took the loss today, he’s in no mood for Wilson’s jibes.

Wilson looks over at Tim, his eyebrows quirked.

\- It’s been quite a performance, the two of you, Timmy, but it’s not fooling anyone, says Wilson down his nose, - hell, the whole fucking clubhouse knows about you guys.

-Yeah? says Tim. - Zat right?

It’s really loud in here, he realizes. Time to take advantage of that.

He takes a big breath to steady himself.

Then, without taking his eyes off Brian’s, Tim slides off his barstool and pushes his his face and shoulders forward as slowly and deliberately as a shark until he and Brian are practically nose-to-nose. At the last moment, just as Wilson’s about to recoil in surprise, Tim tips his head abruptly to the left and keeps moving in over Brian’s shoulder till his mouth’s right up against Wilson’s ear.

Tim’s so close he can smell Brian’s skin, warm with aftershave and new sweat, and the grassy expensive-shampoo scent of his hair.

- _Hey Brian,_ hisses Tim into Brian’s ear, conscious that he’s butted himself in between the closer’s knees - _what’s your fuckin’ problem?_

From the corner of his right eye, Tim sees the apples of Brian’s cheeks jump as the big closer breaks into a smile.

\- You’re not worried about the team, Brian, Tim continues, draping his left hand against the side of his nose as though he's telling a secret. - You keep saying that, but it’s bullshit and you know it. It’s something else, isn’t it?

When Wilson doesn’t answer, Lincecum continues. - I been watching. How you look at him, Brian, Tim says softly. - Doesn’t matter what you guys are doing - dominoes or the bench or what - it’s written all over your face. You want in his pants. You’re not fooling anybody - the whole fucking _clubhouse_ knows.

Brian’s flushing - Tim can feel the heat coming off him.

\- And now, Tim concludes, spitting out each word carefully, - I’m going back to my barstool and you’re gonna high-five me like I’ve been telling you some bullshit story about how I been doing some blonde identical twins or something.

\- And as long as you never bring it up again, Brian, I’ll try not to hold this against you for the rest of your fucking life.

Tim gives Wilson a little chest-pass pushoff with his fingertips and slides back onto his barstool. He crosses his arms, his tongue poking out the bottom of his lip, eyes narrowed by the triumphant grin on his face.

In the gulf of air between them, their right hands collide with a too-loud slap, and Wilson’s shaking his head.

//

The team gets only one day off during spring training, and Tim’s been hoarding the idea of it. He’s thinking he’ll just collapse at home, get his laundry started, smoke a jay and lie out on a towel on the patio till the sun makes the insides of his eyelids glow and he’s baked himself beyond recognition.

Another loss today for the Giants at Camelback, to the Chi Sox, but this time everyone just scatters after the game. Tim’s right shoulder’s throbbing _(but no ice, dad says ice is for my drinks)_ and his hair’s still sticking out funny because his comb’s gone missing, so when he settles himself in the front seat of the Mercedes and hears the note crackling in his front jeans pocket, he pulls it out and just stares at it. What is it - the name of that Ween song? The address for that after-party-party at Romo’s? He squints against the low-slung afternoon sun till he can make out the handwriting: _the hill, 6, bring every jacket you got._

He grinds his head against the headrest and clamps his eyes shut. Fuck. Z hates sitting around - he’s always got a plan.

//

\- It’s March, so there won’t be any snow up there, says Zito, - but it still gets pretty cold at night. So that’s why the jackets. I got some blankets, too, in the back.

The long stretch of steep, icy interstate north from Phoenix had eventually shrunk into a shoulderless two-way that took them through three towns with one blinking stoplight each. Every once in awhile there’d be a couple of split-levels, their plate-glass windows already dark. Or a storefront Iglesia Espiritu Santo next to a corner auto-body place, or a farmhouse watched by cottonwoods at the end of a dirt road.

Tim shifts in his seat - it’s past eight and utterly dark. Not much out here, he thinks to himself. Coyotes and drug-dealers and high-school kids drinking beers out by the railroad tracks - he can hear the whistle out there in the distance.

And then, suddenly, they’re zigzagging slowly up a mountain that seems to have just shown up out of nowhere. They’re passing rickety old houses that look like they were hammered into the cliffsides and left there to settle. The narrow paths and driveways in front of them drop off steeply into bulldozed cliffs.

\- Metropolitan Jerome, Arizona, says Zito. - The other mile-high city. People say it's a ghost town cause it’s shrunk quite a bit, but there’s still a couple hundred people here.

\- Long time ago this place was the wild wild west, says Zito - mining boomtown, so there was gambling and saloons and hookers. I think the original folks who showed up here were hoping for silver, but the real money here’s in copper. If they’d a thought about it, they coulda asked the Indians - they been mining copper and turquoise here since Shakespeare was in diapers - but you know how it is, white people’ve always gotta reinvent the wheel. The names are one of my favorite things about Jerome, he goes on - Mingus Mountain. Cleopatra Hill. The Little Daisy claim.

Tim can hear the smile in his voice.

\- But the best thing about Jerome’s that you can’t write this place off. No matter what happens, it’s like a bulldog, it just keeps coming back. It’s burned down three or four times, and every time, people’ve just sucked it up and rebuilt it. In the twenties or thirties, I think, they started using dynamite in the mines - probably seemed like a good idea at the time - but turns out it shook the whole mountain up so bad that the jail slid all the way across the street with the guys still in it.

He tips his chin at the right-hand side of the road, where a lowish flat-roofed adobe, one wall crumbling away, crouches against a juniper on the cliffside.

\- Good thing it stopped before it went over the edge, says Tim drily, - or there woulda been complaints about due process.

And then Zito swings the car onto an unmarked gravel road that’s rutted into two gravelly tracks. As they traverse the hill, the chassis scrapes rock and the engine keens as ZIto downshifts to get more grab. Tim sits up to steady himself and can’t help yawning, realizing how long they’ve been driving. His shoulder’s still heavy and dark-feeling from the six he threw today.

\- So what’s with this place we’re going?

\- Friend’s house, this guy I known forever, long story, says Zito, - I usually try to get up here every March. He’s not here this time, though - Tim breathes an inward sigh of relief - he’s off in Madagascar stalking lemurs or something. He’s kinda got a split personality, Mike, Zito continues - he likes to go on these eco-tours where they spend three weeks tramping around looking for endangered species, and then on the way home he’ll stop off in Namibia and shoot a bunch of animals and get their heads stuffed.

\- So tell me, Zeets, says Tim after awhile - is there _anybody_ you don’t know? He’s too tired to keep the snark out of his voice.

\- There’s two kinds of people in the world, Timmy, says Zito expansively, - people you’ve met and people you’re about to meet.

Tim rolls down his window and pokes his head out into the rushing darkness.

\- What the fuck? shouts Zito as cold air pours into the car.

\- If you don’t shut up, Zeets, Tim yells back, - I’m gonna have to puke.

//

They finally pull off the road next to a rambling frame house, its once-blue clapboards now weathered to bare wood. It’s buttressed on the far end by a lean-to that appears to be careening off the hill, and there’s a porch that slopes towards the ground like a bowling-alley gutter.

Out back, where they leave the car, the headlights turn up a lichen-blotched Airstream trailer and an outdoor workbench cluttered with rusted tools. The only orderly thing in the whole place is the woodpile.  It's as long as the house and stacked tight all the way up to the eaves.

Once they’re inside - Zito has to unlock four different deadbolts on the newish-looking steel door - it’s cold and still as a tomb. Despite the two jackets he pulled on over his jeans and t-shirt, Tim’s fingers are stiff and he’s shaking with cold. But he surprises Zito by immediately going to work crumpling newspapers and stacking together kindling in the unlit wood-burning stove. When he latches the glass door and pulls out the draw, the flames blaze up white, and the wood catches quickly, though at first it gives more light than heat.

Tim’s at the kitchen sink soaping the carbon and newsprint off his hands when Zito walks over, circled by the yellow glow of a kerosene hurricane lamp he sets down on the drainboard. He sidles up behind Tim and wraps his arms around him, leaning in to kiss the side of his neck, and Tim closes his eyes and tips his head aside as he feels Zito’s fingers unzipping and gently pulling aside the collars of both jackets so that he can get his mouth on Tim’s bare skin.

\- I’m not moving till I’m warm, Tim murmurs as they’re enveloped by the steam churning up from the hot water he’s letting run over his hands. Zito’s warm mouth tracks a line of kisses below Tim’s ear, along his jawline, right to the edge of his mouth, where he stops just short of a full-on kiss.

Tim sighs, the stored-up tension of the day escaping with his breath. He’s lightheaded - they haven’t had anything to eat but a couple of granola bars that were in Zito’s glove box - but he feels clear, tired and finally getting looser, his skin aching to be touched.

Zito’s wrapped his big hands around Tim’s hipbones, thumbs along his waist, pulling him close so he can very slowly thrust his hips against Tim’s ass, and pretty soon their bodies are moving together subtly, sinuously, a dance that always seems like they’re just inventing it now.

When both of them are breathing hoarsely, Tim drags Zito’s right hand over to stroke his hard-on through his jeans, and the feel of those responsive fingers makes Tim’s breath catch in his throat.

\- Place is quirky, says Zito, still thrusting his hips and moving his hands over Tim’s body, and now nuzzling the hair behind Tim’s ear - Mike’s one of those off-the-grid type of guys. There’s no electricity, but there’s propane for the water and the heat. And the woodstove. So it might be a little cold, like right now, but don’t worry, I got a plan.

\- I know you think I’m crazy, Timmy, Zito continues - I know you’re mad at me for dragging you up here. But I had to get out of Phoenix, away from baseball, all the fan shit, the press, he continues, - I’m sick of everything being about me. Don’t think I haven’t noticed, he continues as Tim eyes him sideways - I know you hate it.

Tim says nothing. He turns off the water, looks around for a towel, and finding none, wipes his hands on the thighs of his jeans. He swivels around in Zito’s arms, and once they’re facing each other he runs his left hand up under Zito’s sweater, his warmed fingers skimming along Zito’s skin, and uses his right to loosen the metal buttons on his 501s. Zito’s smiling, his tongue in the corner of his mouth, and when Tim’s fingers go to work on his cock and one of his nipples, he closes his eyes.

\- _Oh, fuck,_ he says, his voice hoarse and low, - _Jesus, Timmy._

\- Think about my mouth, says Tim wickedly, - my hands are good, but my mouth’s _elite._ Read the scouting reports.

Zito can’t seem to convince any words to move from his brain to his lips.

Tim quickly peels off both the jackets he’s been wearing and drops them onto the linoleum floor.

\- While you’ve been allowing yourself to be adored, says Tim, pressing in close enough for Zito to be able to feel the length of his body and the heat of his breath, - I’ve learned a few things.

\- Yeah?

\- Yeah. For one thing, I called Wilson out on this bullshit - this _i_ _nsanity_ he has about me and you and how everybody _knows._

\- I usually let stuff like that ride, Tim continues, - but he just keeps pushing.

Zito nods. - Yeah, he says. - No shit.

\- So that night in we went out with Nate and Brian - member that? That bunch of girls from Milwaukee or wherever lured you over to their table and you were like signing stuff and flirting with them?

\- I was getting pretty tired of watching everybody fall all over you, Tim continues, - and I don’t know, I just kinda snapped.

He pauses. - So here’s the thing. You know Wilson’s got a massive boner for you?

The surprise on Zito’s face is absolute.

\- Me neither, says Tim, grinning, - but I bluffed, and turns out it’s true.

\- What the fuck? says Zito, stepping back, his arms falling to his sides. - How’d you know?

\- I didn’t, says Tim, - it was an educated guess. You don’t exactly need ESP to figure it out, he continues. - In case you haven’t noticed, you got universal chemistry, Barry - nobody doesn’t like you. It stands to reason that Brian musta just got bit by the same bug as everybody else.

\- So what’d you say to him?

\- I told him if he ever so much as mentioned it again, I’d hunt him down and kill him, says Tim solemnly.

Zito can’t keep the look of incredulity off his face.

So Tim seizes the left-hander’s ass in both hands, grinding his hips into Barry’s, and then covers Zito’s mouth with his own. This is the kiss they’ve both been waiting all day for, and Tim can’t help the hum that rises in the back of his throat as their tongues meet. And now Zito’s moaning too, his big hands steadying Tim’s neck and jaw, holding him there as though he’s afraid it might end.

He’s got nothing to worry about.

Zito’s body is vibrating in Tim’s hands like a bowstring, sounding a new note with every touch. They’re there for a long time, their mouths and bodies taking time to remember what it feels like - what this is.

Eventually the hurricane lamp fickers out and the kitchen grows cold and dark again as it’s absorbed by the shadows. The two big logs Zito added to Tim’s fire have shrunk down to embers.

When they finally open their eyes, it’s like all the churn and drama of life in the Bigs has burned clean away in the belly of the wood-burning stove, leaving only the light shining in their eyes.

//

Zito’s dragged one of the couch futons off its frame and over in front of the wood-burning stove. It’s piled with the blankets he’s brought from home - plaid stadium throws and a big goose-down duvet and an old red-and-yellow cotton quilt that’s too ugly and beat-up to be anything but an heirloom.

\- Baseboard heat’s not working, says Zito, - but it doesn’t matter, cause both bedrooms are padlocked, so we’re camping out here. It’s probably warmer anyway. The walls in this place've gotta be insulated with newspaper - I know cause I helped Mike do some drywall when he bumped out the kitchen windows, and you don’t want to know what we found in there.

Tim drops to his knees onto the futon and falls dead forward into a face-plant.

\- I’m so tired I don’t care, he says, his voice muffled by the cotton futon.  He brings his chin up. - The heads are creeping me out, though.  It’s like we're being watched.

The back wall of the big room, facing the fireplace, is jammed with hunting trophies - the mounted heads of elk and moose and bear and kudu and oryx and impala.  There are so many that they barely fit. At the center of this congress of taxidermy is a water-buffalo head whose enormous turban-like horns are festooned with strings of gold and purple Mardi Gras beads and several worn leather dog-collars, their edges white with dried sweat, each bristling with metal spikes.

At that moment, the front-facing windows flash white light - headlights out here in the middle of nowhere? - followed by the sound of car tires spitting gravel. Tim sits up like a dog that’s got a squirrel in its sights. Zito, who’s somehow already over at the door, closes it softly behind him when he steps outside. There’s the sound of voices, stanched by the big steel door, and then the door cracks and Zito comes back in, hefting a big wooden box. He toes his shoes off and sets it down on the oak sideboard. Along with the whistle of wind that’s rattling the window-sashes, there’s the sound of a car-door slamming, and then the low growl of an engine fading away into the night.

Tim watches as Zito, his back to Tim, pries off the top of the box, sets it carefully to the side, and reaches in. There’s the sound of a cap being twisted off a bottle of beer, and then Zito lifts out a couple of paper-wrapped parcels. He turns around - an apple embedded in his teeth - and, pretending to stagger, brings the armload over to where Tim’s lounging in front of the fire.

\- Foo’, he says, his voice muffled by the apple. He takes it out of his mouth, minus a bite so big he can hardly chew it. - You hungry?  From the Flatiron Cafe, he says, - I didn’t want us to have to go out. They don’t usually do dinner and they don’t usually deliver, but I asked nicely.

\- This the upside of the Zito charm offensive? says Tim. He takes a big bite of the sandwich Zito’s handed him.

\- I’ll take it, Tim says, closing his eyes momentarily in pleasure. - I'm starving.

When he's done chewing, he puts the sandwich back down on the paper. He crawls over on all fours to kiss Zito behind the ear.

//

After curried squash soup (Barry), BLTs with homemade mayonnaise (Tim’s with the L and T stripped off as though they’re poisonous), apple-and-smoked-cheese quesadillas (weird but good, Tim admits), Bosc pears and Stilton (Zito), and some pita triangles with red-pepper hummus (Tim derides it as monkey shit), they’re almost full.

The fire’s really blazing now, radiating almost enough heat to push them off the futon and back into the shadows.

But he’s still hungry, and when he’s hungry, Tim’s strategic, so he waits till Barry’s not looking and steals - just steals - Zito’s white chocolate-and-dried-cherry cake with brandy sauce right off his plate.  He scarfs it down while Barry's over in the kitchen getting himself a glass of water.  And then, when Zito returns with the water and sits there staring at the empty plate, wondering whether he’s hallucinating, Tim explodes with laughter and pretty soon they’re rolling around on the futon and Zito’s got him pinned.

\- That was mine, Timmy, you little fucker!

Tim pulls one hand loose - he’s still licking the brandied cream off his fingers.

\- I know, says Tim, - but it was so _good_. After all the suffering you’ve put me through, don’t you think I deserve it?

The look on Zito’s face is something Tim won’t forget.

//

\- Mike’s a dealer, isn’t he, Barry? says Tim.

They’re lying naked, side-by-side on the futon in front of the wood-burning stove, the stark chill of the big room held off by the white heat that makes the air waver as Tim lifts an arm to wash through it, feeling the current. They’ve kicked the goosedown duvet into a fat bolster that staves off the cold at their backs.

\- How’d you know?

\- Well, says Tim, - for starters, there’s a Glock and a clip for it in the coffee-table drawer.

Zito slides one arm across his chest.

\- The front door’s steel and there's four deadbolts, Tim goes on. - Those collars up there?  Those gotta be some badass dogs - pit bulls, rotties. The bedrooms are padlocked. That trailer out back’d be a perfect meth kitchen.

\- But I’m guessing more high-end stuff, Tim says carefully, looking at Zito - Special K?  Ecstasy?  Coke? 

Zito props himself up on one arm and leans over, stroking Tim’s hair back behind one ear, and kisses the corner of his eye.

\- Sometimes you just have to observe, says Zito - and not ask too many questions.

Barry tips his nose and their lips meet - soft, quiet, sated.

For a moment, Tim’s thinking of pushing Zito away, getting up and dressed, getting out of here.

But the smell of Barry’s skin, the warmth of the firelight, their utter isolation in this strange place suddenly pushes him beyond fear, and he’s kissing Zito back.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to horizon_greene for the beta.


End file.
